All of Ohio’s existing statewide elected officials are currently serving their second term, meaning new candidates from both parties will be vying for Governor, Treasurer, Auditor, AG and Secretary of State in 2018. Potential Republican candidates for these offices will have a choice to make: latch on to the Trump agenda and hope to ride wave that carried the current president to an 8 point win in Ohio last year, or shy away from the current administration and its alternative facts and damaging policies while making a bet that Trump’s approval stays in the 40s or below.

From Judd Dunham, who wrote earlier today about his encounter with Senator Portman, below is an open letter to the Portman staff who helpfully arranged today’s private meeting with constituents on what comes next:

Hello guys, Just wanted to thank you again for restoring some faith in human decency and American democracy today . I know that must sound absurd but really I hope you realize that for a group of people like us to do what we did today is actually totally abnormal. None of us is part of some organized group, none of us is being […]

A group of a dozen or so concerned citizens got word yesterday that Rob Portman would be attending an event at Columbus State about opioid addiction. Most of us have spent the past six weeks trying however we knew how to get an audience with the senator or with any Republican congressmen in our areas to express our deep concerns with the direction the country has taken. since the election. This has included multiple in person visits to Senator Portman’s office as […]

In a recent Dispatch article, Governor Kasich “defended his proposed school funding formula that would result in cuts for more than half of Ohio’s school districts” by complaining that many school districts “have not looked to improve how they operate, from merging with other districts to partnering in purchasing.”

In fact, many school districts have reduced programs and services to cope with state-imposed loss of tangible personal property revenue (TPP), state cuts in reimbursement for loss of TPP, flat state funding for several years and loss of funds flowing to charters and vouchers.

With so many Trump Age Republican no-shows at town hall meetings around the country, is it fair to assume that they are busy rehearsing for a revival of The Shadow, the old radio series with a remarkable detective who could cloud people’s minds without being seen? OK, for skeptics, it’s true that they already have plenty of experience doing that from their perches on Capitol Hill! As a kid, I was forever enthralled by The Shadow, who knew what “evil lurked in the hearts of men” and set about to expose it. ( Heh. heh. heh…} Thanks to special […]

Ohio mainstream media is all a twitter again, this time about John Kasich’s meeting Friday with Donald Trump at the White House. In the mystery of who invited who to this odd couple confab between a new president and a lame-duck governor who will wander off the political radar screen in less than two years, the mystery might not be a mystery if observable history is considered.

It’s indisputable that the Trump administration has a habit of lying even when it isn’t necessary. It is also true that that Gov. Kasich has been in Trump’s doghouse for a long time. […]

The former Ohio Republican Party has now evolved into the Ohio Trump Party, from a rich new chairman down. (A “hostile takeover” , as one Republican grieved to me.) Nevertheless, there are campaigns for the 2018 ballot to be organized.

It’s already begun. Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel – Trump Jr.- has quickly announced his mobilized ground forces for another major thrust at Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s seat – the one that he failed to win once before – by planting organizers in all of Ohio’s 88 counties. I […]

Ohio’s 69th governor has left the state again, this time to hop the pond for a few days to schmooze with German and English businesses. Odds are slim that the 64-year old supply side governor will learn anything about how important unions are to German companies.

Called co-determination, it’s not uncommon in Germany for unions to hold seats on corporate boards, which helps explain why German union workers have such high wages compared to American unions which are routinely denigrated by Republican governors like Mr. Kasich, who may have a chance to sign a right-to-work bill that guts […]

For everyone who isn’t paying attention to the good news about how former President Barack Obama’s national health law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [ACA], is helping in Ohio, one million Buckeyes who didn’t have health care insurance before the ACA have it now.

Through a combination of a marketplace exchange and the expansion of Medicaid, the federal/state health insurance program for the poor under Obamacare [aka ACA], the rate of uninsured Ohioans is at its lowest level ever.

Before the rollout of the Health Insurance Marketplace in 2013, 1.3 million Ohioans or slightly more than 11 […]

Happy President’s Day – the tribute of American democracy to our leaders from the one who would not tell a lie to the serial liar who is the current occupant. No whoppers from Sunday’s batch but we do know that on the seventh day he rests.

The sweaty campaign-like performance at his Florida misnamed “press conference” produced more than enough evidence to disqualify him for honorable President’s Day activities . I’m thinking of his torrential assault on the “dishonest press” that wouldn’t even show, he complained, the huge crowd that had found its way into the Melbourne hangar with cheers […]